Friedan, Betty

orig. Bettye Naomi Goldstein

(born Feb. 4, 1921, Peoria, Ill., U.S.—died Feb. 4, 2006, Washington, D.C.) U.S. feminist. She attended Smith College and worked in New York before marrying and having children. Her dissatisfaction with her role as housewife prompted her to write The Feminine Mystique (1963), the work that sparked the modern American feminist movement. In 1966 she cofounded the National Organization for Women. Her later books include The Second Stage (1981), The Fountain of Age (1993), and the memoir Life So Far (2000).

Friedan, Betty (Naomi Goldstein) (1921– ) author, feminist leader; born in Peoria, Ill. A summa cum laude graduate from Smith (1942), she was awarded fellowships for working toward a doctorate in psychology but abandoned this under the influence of what she would later call "the feminine mystique." She married in 1947 and for almost the next 20 years lived the life of a conventional suburban housewife/mother. (She had three children; she would get divorced in 1969.) As a result of surveys of female college graduates, she came to identify certain problems that women were experiencing in their lives, and after several years of research she published The Feminine Mystique (1963), an exposé of the traditional roles assigned to women in modern industrial societies; although not an especially profound critique, it became an international best-seller and is credited with generating the so-called second wave of modern feminism. In 1966 she was one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and served as its first president (1966–70), moving on to other activities promoting the advancement of women. Through her writings, lecturing, organizational work, and outspokenness, she became one of the most influential feminist leaders of the late 20th century. In 1982, feeling that some individuals and elements of the feminist movement had gone off into extreme positions, she published The Second Stage, calling for a more balanced approach in the women's movement, and in 1993 she published The Fountain of Age, about the ways that older people can find satisfaction in their lives.